Fragments of some of our life’s firsts remain in our memory, like a pesky piece of gum on a shoe, like a C-section scar on a tummy. My first crush. My first wank. My first kiss. My first porno. My first fuck. My first kill.

Her name was Nadya, and she was cute. I’d stare at her four rows away every day in grade school. Her blond pigtails and big blue eyes brought me some sweet satisfaction I didn’t know how to describe. She paid me no mind because I was an ugly boy. My nose was too big for my face and my teeth were crooked like a broken fence. Her family left Verona after grade school. I never saw her again but didn’t dare to forget her. I dreamt she’d be my wife and we’d have lots of babies. Silly me.

You shouldn’t trust somebody who refused to turn away from the shores of the past. The earth revolved only one way and time moved only in one direction, forward. Those who protested the motion of time’s unrelenting ocean expired as prisoners of their own island, barren and lonely.

I could list a few people who I believed could outrun Gina any day: stick-thin Amy who I had never seen leave the reception area, Madeleine in a pair of six-inch stilettos and even Leopold who never went beyond a jog when using a treadmill. But that assumption didn’t deter me from my mission. After fifteen minutes of brisk walking, I pressed the most important button on the treadmill Gina was using. I pressed it five times.

If given a chance to save a damsel in distress, would you take it or leave it? Any dick, thinking or unthinking, would take it because nothing shone brighter than any medal or trophy, except any gallant act, ancient or modern. What if the damsel was a cheesecake-liking and carbonara-loving, soon-to-be-married lady, in short, FAT? Would you take it or leave it?